Opened networks are flooded with a large quantity of contents, such as music, video, pictures, address information, various forms, product information, text description, and geographical locations. Accordingly, there are a lot of services for processing these contents, such as ring tone setting, color ring setting, picture transmission, video sharing, location identifying, product querying, and schedule setting, in the opened networks. These contents and services in the networks are generally developed and published by different entities, and may be added, modified and cancelled dynamically.
Currently, in Internet or telecommunication networks, a user generally selects the services, for processing relevant contents, by two ways. One way is that the user first selects and performs a service capable of processing a certain type of contents, and selects among the certain types of contents according to the program logic of the service. The other way is that the user first finds a certain type of contents or an identification of the certain type of contents, then selects an appropriate service to process the certain type of contents. For the latter way, there are two implementation manners in the conventional technology, which are as follows:
Implementation Manner 1: The user may select an appropriate service according to a postfix of a file bearing the contents, because most of the operation systems of mobile terminals or desktop computers have file management functions and thereby allow the user to configure programs for processing the file. For example, the user may select a picture from a resource manager, and choose, by use of a right key of a mouse, one program from processing programs such as picture editing, picture displaying, and picture transmission via email.
Implementation Manner 2: A user may view a certain type of contents by a browser, and the browser may invoke a file processing component of a local operation system to automatically perform a service for processing the certain type of contents. For example, when the user is viewing an MP3 (MPEG-1 audio Layer 3) file via a browser, the browser may invoke a file processing component in a local operation system, to automatically perform an MP3 player program.
During the process of forming the invention, the inventor has discovered, via investigation, that the above conventional technology solutions all depend on local operation systems, and therefore are applicable only when the local operation systems have the programs capable of processing the contents. However, with the development of software services, more and more contents processing services are provided by application servers in the opened networks. In this case, the above conventional technology solutions cannot select, over the networks, the service servers capable of processing the corresponding contents.